Respite's End
by zosimos
Summary: Reserve'verse: An unexpected encounter after all these years...


_I'm dead._

The only thing he could around himself was darkness. He felt like he was floating, but lying down at the same time. Edward Elric closed his eyes and tried to get his bearing, but couldn't. He felt like he was in a fog, his mind as confused as the rest of him. He wasn't dreaming. His temple throbbed, the pain distant but palpable.

_I was out with Rian and they shot me in the head. I'm dead._

It wasn't the way he had planned to go, not that anyone ever could plan these things. He barely could remember what had happened, that split-second before, Rian's eyes widening as he moved toward Edward, then the pain, and then -

And then, nothing.

Was this what it was like to be dead? There was no point to sitting up, he couldn't see anything. The darkness had lessened somewhat, it now tinged on gray but it was like swimming through a fog. Edward instead closed his eyes and sighed. He had been so _close_. When Fuhrer Dalton died six months ago the post was quickly filled - by one of the few people Edward trusted in the upper echelon of the military, Brigadier General Olivier Mira Armstrong. Although, she didn't seem interested in Edward's ulterior goal of divorcing the military from ruling the country, he knew at least that she wasn't invested in his downfall. In fact, she trusted him enough to put him on the senior adviser's panel - probably as compensation for stealing Lieutenant Colonel Hawkeye from him. That panel came with a promotion; as it wouldn't do for someone in the adviser's panel for the Fuhrer to be a lowly junior officer. He'd made _General._

Thirty-five years old, the one of the youngest to be promoted to that rank while still alive and not in combat. And dead before he could reach thirty-six.

"It really isn't like you to give up so easily, Ed."

The voice came out of nowhere and surprised him, enough so that he opened his eyes. The fog hadn't yet dissipated but it was lighter yet in color, looking like threatening storm clouds instead of impenetrable blackness. The voice was familiar, that husky tinge-

"Rian?" Edward croaked, sitting up and realizing he was laying on nothing at all. He ran a hand through his hair, recognized the roughness of his gloves and realized that even through the murkiness he could at least see his own hand. "Rian, where are you-?"

"No." A hint of amusement, a hint of sadness. "Not Rian."

Now he could see, the familiar shape seated in a desk chair, legs crossed and elbows resting on the armrests - and Edward was fifteen again, spark of anger behind his eyes and he balanced unsteadily on legs that didn't want to carry him forward. "Mustang." A pause, and then Edward said sardonically. "I _am_ dead."

The fog was beginning to clear. It was Roy Mustang, just as Edward remembered - not in the outfit he saw him last, his military uniform coated in sand and the tan overcoat blood-stained - but as clean and orderly as he always was in the office, hair artfully mussed just enough to look unintentional. He looked like a commanding officer, and for just that moment Edward was his subordinate again, decked out in red and black and as much of a fireball as the colors represented.

But that was behind him now, wasn't it? He exhaled and the old fire lessened, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, he was himself again, not a memory. The clothes he felt most comfortable in, the military blues - his hair tied back not in a heavy plait but it a tight ponytail, neatly trimmed end brushing the top of his shoulder blades. He wasn't a child.

Roy smiled for him - an honest smile, not that smirk that used to set off all of Edward's emotions like a firecracker. "It's been a long time."

"I always figured when I died I'd go back to the Gate," Edward said. The more he looked around, the more that the fog resolved into that office that no longer housed the man he'd fallen in love with. "What is this?"

"You're not dead, Fullmetal," Roy said, his hands folded in his lap.

"No one calls me that anymore," Edward murmured reflectively, then tapped the side of his head. "They assassinated me, you know," he said. "Al will never let me live it down." His throat tightened, the panicked expression on Rian's face floating to the forefront of his mind. "God. Rian."

He looked too much like Roy now for Edward sometimes, but now confronted with the real thing Edward could see the difference like night and day. Rian had taken to slicking his hair back when he was on duty, it made him look older and more official. He wasn't that much younger than Edward, now - that age difference that seemed so significant at first shrunk with time. He was twenty-seven now, older than Edward was when he first met him.

"Where am I, Mustang?" Edward asked.

Roy didn't answer him, looking at Edward with a sad smile on his face. "You look so respectable now, Ed," he said. "You wear the uniform well, you know."

"Don't make me pull rank on you," Edward said, his voice getting low. "You know where we are."

"I do," Roy murmured. "But I'd like to see you try that."

"I outrank you."

Roy's eyes flicked to the epaulets on Edward's shoulders, and for the first time the vision of Edward's first lover seemed perturbed. "No."

"Where the hell am I?"

Roy stood up and for the first time they stood ground as equals. Edward nearly was Roy's own height, he maybe only had an inch on him. Roy reached a hand, cautiously, and halted it a hair from Edward's face. Roy sighed, dejectedly, and dropped his hand. "You're in the space between."

"The space between?"

"The world of the living and the dead," Roy said. "You came close, Ed, really close this time."

"If you're telling me the truth," Edward watched as Roy resumed his seat in the desk chair, the desk materializing to his right. They were truly in Roy's office now. Edward remembered it bigger than it was, more imposing. "Then why are YOU here?"

"You have to ask?" Roy propped an elbow on the desk and leaned his hand into it. "I'm waiting for you."

At once Edward felt the twist in his belly at those words. The man he had loved and mourned for so long and finally let go of was here in front of him now saying he'd been waiting two decades for _him_. "Roy..." How did he explain to this spectre of his past that he'd moved on? That there was a new man in his life, who had been in his life for almost a full decade? _I don't love you anymore. Do I...?_

"Time doesn't pass here, you know," Roy said contemplatively. "Time is a circle, and we're standing in the center of that circle. It rotates around us."

"You don't have to wait for me," Edward said.

Roy smiled. "I don't," he said. "But I will." He looked aside, toward something - or someone - that only he could see. "I'm glad you moved on, Ed." He raised an eyebrow at Edward's surprised expression. "I didn't expect you to take vows, you know. You were so young when I died. _I_ was so young." His expression was wistful. "Even if you've forgotten me, I'll still wait for you."

Just like that, now he was seventeen again, waistcoat fitting awkwardly as he sprouted upwards, those years of being called bean long behind him. He moved toward Roy then, reaching for him - and to his surprise Roy drew backwards. "No," Roy said, his voice nearly breaking. "You can't."

"I want to-" Edward said, grabbing for Roy. His hand caught the cuff of Roy's military uniform and immediately the clothing blackened, curling up away from Edward's touch. Where his fingers brushed the back of Roy's hand the area turned to ash, exposing for a second muscle and, as that melted away, white bone that quickly blackened. Edward recoiled in horror, and Roy covered his hand with the other, sighing deeply.

The skin restored itself, his military uniform didn't look like it had ever been burned. "You can't," Roy said firmly this time. "You can't touch me, Ed. The living can't interact with the dead."

It hurt. It hurt more than the shot to the head, to see Roy in front of him now and not being able to throw his arms around him, bury his face into Roy's shoulder or be touched by him. He couldn't show Roy everything he had learned, how he learned to make Rian sob his name to the ceiling, how he taught Rian how to fuck like Roy had taught him - and now that he knew he couldn't touch him it hurt a thousand times more.

Edward withdrew his hand. "I'm sorry," he said. Roy was starting to go fuzzy around the edges. "Wait-"

Roy's smile, still so sad. "I'm not going anywhere, Edward," he promised.

"I'm going to be the Fuhrer," Edward said, himself again in his uniform. "I'm going to do it for you, I'm going to fix this country for you, Roy-" So indistinct, now. "I swear it."

"I know you will," Roy's voice from far away. "I believe in you, love." Then the darkness swallowed him.

Edward squinted at the tile above the hospital bed. It was blurry and indistinct, he couldn't make out the individual cracked tiles. He had needed reading glasses for years now but it wasn't usually this bad - then it took him a moment to realize that he was looking out of only one eye.

Rian was sleeping in the chair by the bed. It was dark outside, the room lit by the monitors and soft lighting. Through a window Edward could see a military police guard. He was important enough now to warrant guards. The thought amused him, tired as he was. He didn't have the energy to lift his arm to check the bandage over his right eye, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't lift his arm.

_Automail malfunction. Winry's gonna kill me._

As if that were the extent of his troubles.

Something important was slipping through his fingers. Edward wanted to reach for Rian, to let him know that he was awake but he was too tired to do anything but close his eye and drift off into another drug-induced sleep. He felt a warm hand cover his left one and he cracked his eye open again, to see Rian, rumpled and exhausted and with dark circles under his eyes, covering Edward's hand with his own. Edward smiled for him, as Rian lifted his hand to his mouth, the only kiss they could share here. "Love you," Edward said drowsily. "Won't leave you, 'promise."

"I know," Rian said, his voice cracking. "I know."


End file.
